Leading Teaching and Learning

The standard for Principals. The role in Action.
Professional practices

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Questions

Nothing can be learnt without a question being asked. QuestionMy children range from 3 to 7. Every parent with children in this age group will remember their barrage of questions about every conceivable subject. Why, why, why..? Their brains are like sponges, soaking up every bit of information to make sense of their world. Children learn more in the first 7 years of their lives than in the remainder.

Something happens around 7 or 8 years of age and their questioning becomes less frequent. Is it because parents and teachers start asking all the questions and children are expected to come up with the answers? At Hackham East School we are working to turn this around. We are encouraging children to question. Teachers are only allowing children to put hands up to ask questions rather than to give answers. When a teacher asks a question, every child is expected to have an answer or an opinion. Every “I don’t know” is a learning opportunity.

The great women’s tennis player, Billie Jean King stated that every lost point was a research opportunity. “How could I have done that better?” More is learnt from mistakes than successes because one is prompted to ask questions about what to do to avoid making the same mistake again. Asking for help when something is not understood should be encouraged and not be seen as a sign of weakness. Billie Jean would not have been embarrassed to get feedback from her coach.

Parents and caregivers can assist at home by encouraging questioning. Ask your children what questions they asked during the day.

  • When a child asks a question, try answering with a question rather than an answer such as
    • What do you think? or What is your explanation?
    • Do you agree or disagree and why?
    • How would you decide about ……..?
  • Encourage questions beginning with Why, How, What if …

Why do children stop questioning? That is a very good question. Let us try to foster our children’s natural curiosity for learning by encouraging them to ask questions.

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The Learning Pit

I am a big Doctor Who fan. He is always able to solve the unsolvable by seeing the unobvious and deducing the implausible. He may need some assistance from his female companion or his sonic screw-driver but he always works out what to do to save the day. Despite having two hearts his skills are not superhuman rather those of problem solving through logic, deduction, perseverance, persistence and asking the right questions.

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? Developing the skills and strategies in dealing with the unknown and the new is something that all children will need to be successful in the future. The world that our children are growing into will be very different from our own. Change is occurring so quickly in everything. Technology is changing every aspect of work and society. Manual and skilled jobs are being replaced by robots and automation. Our children will be working in jobs that have not even been dreamt of yet. Adaptability and an open, learning mindset is key.

How do we assist children to develop these skills?

One cannot be a nimble thinker and problem solver if one is fearful of being stuck, fearful of making a mistake or fearful of the discomfort of not knowing what to do. We want children to have a go and be risk takers but we too often cotton wool them to the extent that we rob them of their opportunity to learn.

The Learning Pit is a good metaphor for talking to children about the learning process and resilience.The Learning Pit Getting stuck is where the best learning takes place. When we are stuck we might get negative feelings like discomfort, frustration, helplessness towards our learning. We hear children say, “I won’t do it.” or “I can’t do it.” If we intervene at this stage and rescue by doing it for them they will learn that getting stuck is a bad thing, that the negative feelings are bad and they will continually shy away from a challenge. They will not develop persistence or resilience toward learning.

As a child struggles with a problem get them to ask questions to clarify and explore the options. Answer their questions with questions rather then an answer so that they are doing the thinking and solving the problem themselves. Ask them where they might be able to find help – internet, Youtube etc and let them explore. As they begin to get themselves “unstuck”, they will gain confidence in their own abilities and develop an “I can do it!” attitude. This will benefit them throughout their lives.

Doctor Who thrives on challenge. He doesn’t give up. He isn’t rescued. He persists and succeeds.

Stuck? Great! Good learning happens when you are stuck.

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Easter Eggheads

A Miracle! – Bunny lays chocolate eggs and then paints them!

It always bothers me around Easter and Christmas time how crazy our society and education system has become. As I walk around the school, my school and any government school, I see teachers and children doing activities about  Easter bunnies, Easter bilbies, Easter eggs and chocolate . At Christmas time is is Santa Claus in his Coca Cola colour coded clothing, songs and stories of airborne reindeer, flying sleighs, snow in summer and corny carols. What is happening to education when there is a total lack of focus on the reason for the season?

Would Anzac Day ever be seriously taught in schools by only focusing on the Essendon v Collingwood AFL Football clash? Would Australia Day be celebrated with no mention of Australia? Would the Queens Birthday ever be celebrated with no mention of Her Majesty or Queens Birthday Honours? Yet because Easter and Christmas are religious holidays, holidays that everyone is happy to take off, educators are happy to discount the historical, religious and sociological significance and the reason that these holidays exist. This is similar to teaching Australian History with no acknowledgement of the 40 000+ years of Aboriginal History, or teaching English Literature with a total focus on comics.

I am not implying that the religious/historical/cultural events behind Easter and Christmas should be taught as fact. But surely they need to be taught. If teachers believe that these events are fantasy rather than history, why do they choose to teach the commercial fantasy of Santa and Easter Bunny over the “fantasies” that have had a major impact at shaping the past two millennia? It could be argued that these two events that most teachers shy away from or just ignore are the the most significant in shaping western history, culture, law, science and the Arts. I would be more than happy if the previous statement was debated in schools rather than children spending all their seasonal energy colouring in stencilled sheets of a cartoonlike rabbit capable of illegally breaking into everyone’s house carrying container loads of chocolate  and foil wrapping.

Education should be about inclusivity, examining all sides of an argument, encouraging questioning and investigating fantasy and fact. We should not sacrifice our moral purpose on the alter of chocolate and tinsel (sold at a store near you!).

 

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Reflections on Maths with Ann Baker

Ann Baker presented a full day’s thought provoking training at Hackham East Primary.

The following things resonated:

There should be three parts to a Maths Block.

  1. Mental Routines
  2. Problematise Situation
  3. Reflection

Mental Routines – 10 minutes daily

The traditional mental routines have an adverse effect on student self esteem, learning and attitude to maths.

Ann demonstrated many activities using the 100 grid for mental. Children share multiple strategies for solving problems.

Present the same mental routine for a fortnight. Kids need to be speaking the maths language and meta language. Teach the vocabulary or terminology (factors, multiples…) explicitly for those routines. Display on the board.

Terminology requires 200 repetitions to embed.

Ask Guy Claxton type open ended questions:

What if…?

What might…?

What could…?

Reflective learners need time to process therefore think that they’re dumb if they don’t get it as quickly as others.

Similarities with Dylan Wiliam – Wait Time or Processing time is essential for thinking – ask and wait. Let kids think. Then flip the asking of the questions over to the kids. Ask reflective thinkers if they’ll ask the first question. Cue them in at the beginning of the lesson. Tell the more able students to wait until after the 4th question before they can ask.

Problematised Situation (Problem Solving)

ACARA Mathematics Proficiency Strands: Understanding, Fluency, Reasoning, Problem Solving

Higher order thinking and reasoning should be built into everything to develop adaptive reasoning.

As over 60% of all children are Visual Learners, provide visual support. (Just as oral comprehension precedes written comprehension.)

Echoes of TfEL 2.4 Challenge and Support. Let kids struggle. With best of intentions we too often over praise, over provide and over protect.

All problems should have Easy Peasy, Middly Puddly and Sting in the Tail.

Encourage collaboration and discussion. What you do with the help of a friend you’ll do tomorrow by yourself.

Do not rehearse inappropriate strategies. Practice makes permanent.

The Secret Code

Subitize from subito meaning to “suddenly know”. The importance of being able to subitize cannot be over stated. All success in mathematics is built upon this.

Subitize and Count on. (Take the largest number and count on) If Receptions cannot count on they will never catch up with others.

Tell children that we are all born with a Lazy Brain – it tries to chunk things together.

Subitizing games:

  • Magic Cloak – throw a large die, and immediately cover it with the Magic Cloak (tee- towel). Children draw what they saw.
  • Children throw 2 dice repeatedly. Teacher calls doubles, one less then, one more than etc. Children put their hands up when this combination is thrown. Teacher acknowledges as the hands go up.

Explicitly teach children the Secret Code:

Count on (co)

Double (d)

Rainbow facts (rf)

Near double (nd)

Friendly number (fn) (is any number that ends in 0)

Bridge through 10

Round and adjust (year 4+)

Landmark numbers – 25, 50, 75, 100 (base 10) 15, 30, 45 (base 60)

If kids come up with their own strategies, the strategy is named after that child ie SS Sally’s Strategy.

Encourage children to play with the numbers, pull them apart, experiment and discover patterns, relationships etc.

Problem Solving Strategy

All problems must have a real purpose or context. The children must be able to see or image the problem. It has to be real to the child. Puppets can be used to assist this.

Let kids work out what is happening. Productive failure – learning from reflecting on mistakes.

Always teach kids to work from what they know.

Give 1 problem (eg M&Ms on Muffins) and get the group to find as many ways of solving the problem. Group then decides which strategy is best and why.

If you can’t do something in 6 ways you can’t do it.

Respond to children who have asked good questions or come up with good strategies (the “right answer” is secondary to the thinking): “Thank you for the learning opportunity …”

Formative Assessment Strategy

Interview a child

Gather 2 pieces of documentary evidence per child per term (on work on students’ work if given permission or on a Post It note stuck to the work and placed in a plastic sleeve):

  • child said…,
  • child did…
  • With suggestion/prompting child said…
  • Which strategy did you like?
  • Which is more reliable?
  • Are any similar?
  • How?

Do not rescue. If a child cannot get started, ask them to walk around the room to look at other children’s work and see if there is a strategy that they like.

 

If you do not do a reflection, you did nothing.

Multiplication: Begin with Tally of 5 to learn 5 x tables. 6 x is tally of 5 count on 1 etc.

 

How and where to create and find problems:

  1. Use existing problems from Ann’s books
  2. Copy: Use Ann’s problems but change numbers and context
  3. Devise own, but consider that the numbers used provide the best opportunity to get the desired learning.
  4. Share problematised situations with staff.

 

Structure of a typical week

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday
Mental Routines Mental Routines Mental Routines Mental Routines Mental Routines
Problem

  • · Gaps
  • · Misconceptions
  • · Error patterns
  • · Strengths
 Strategy lesson Problem Strategy lesson Problem
Reflection Reflection Reflection Reflection Reflection

 

Ann recommended the following apps.

Guessem

Clock Master

Natural Maths

Finger Tips

Blog

Natural Maths Strategies

Thoughts on follow up:

  • Teachers video their mental routines – capture their questioning, the students’ language and reflections etc to share with others in their PC.
  • Share Commitment to Action in PLCs
  • Get Ann Baker back to do demonstration lessons in classes and release teachers to observe
  • Maths Committee to reflect and develop plan to support implementation of the Maths block across the school.
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Eduthoughts – pondering learning

My first Eduthoughts post is pondering on why the thousands of hours and millions of dollars spent in Training and Professional Development of teachers has resulted in such little change in effective pedagogy and student achievement. Even the most current technologies are often than not wrapped in a dated pedagogy which does not redefine and transform learning but rather substitutes paper for digital.

I hear Peter Taylor use the phrase “apprenticeship by observation” when explaining why so many teachers teach the way they were taught and I have been pondering it ever since. It worried me deeply because the implications are significant.

As babies and then as children we make sense of our world through observation and make meaning through association. We learn language because we are absorbed in it – observation, listening and mimicking are our teachers. We learn our morals, ethics, eating habits in the same way and these are often very well developed before we enter school. Then at school we observe teachers daily for 12 or more years and make sense of what school is all about: we learn school. We learn that to be successful we must conform because that is what most teachers want us to do. We hear the importance of risk taking, of being creative, of being individuals but are never given authentic opportunities to do so because we are told what and how to learn. Our patterns of “doing school” are set through this 12 year apprenticeship.

A habit or pattern of behaviour reinforced for 12 years is extremely difficult to change as it becomes default behaviour.

The old put down, “Those who can do and those who can’t teach.” may not be the case but is there any truth in a “teaching natural selection”? That after the 12 year apprenticeship those who are attracted to teaching are those who learnt to “do school” successfully, those who conformed and those who were successful at what the teachers expected and valued? “The apple does not fall far from the tree.”

It is a minority of teachers who “think different”, who do not conform , who continually question and strive to transform their new learning into a new default. Evolution teaches that significant change takes eons. The kids of today cannot wait.

How do we disrupt the apprenticeship to make the minority the majority?